The Biden administration has proposed a budget for fiscal year 2022 (October 1, 2021 through September 30, 2022) that would have the federal government spending $6 trillion.

Some just shrug their shoulders.  Some are outraged at the amount.  You could probably tell people that the proposal is for $5 trillion or $7 trillion and you would get about the same reaction.  I don’t think most people would be able to tell you how much the government is spending annually within half a trillion dollars.  Some people might not even know it is in the trillions.  And for those who do understand, it is still hard to comprehend.

If you have one million dollars, you would have to multiply that by one million in order to get a trillion.  So if you take one million rich Americans and order them to pay one million dollars each in one year, it won’t even cover 20% of the federal budget.

It is surprisingly difficult to find good sources that give a good overhead view of the federal budget.  Here is one website that gives a good summary of the receipts and outlays going back to 1930.  The receipts are the tax collections.  The outlays column represents the spending.  The difference is the surplus or deficit.

Of course, it is mostly deficits.  The numbers don’t take into account the unfunded liabilities.  Much of the surpluses of the latter Bill Clinton years came from Social Security taxes paid, where the amount the government paid out to Social Security recipients was less than what was collected.  What should have been going into the Social Security Trust Fund was really being used to show a surplus.  Still, the years of a Clinton presidency with a Republican Congress look like a dream compared to the mess we’re in now.

The numbers are shown in billions of dollars.  If you look at the outlays for fiscal year 2020, it shows 6,550.4.  This means approximately $6.55 trillion was spent for fiscal year 2020.  The tax collections were $3.421 trillion, which resulted in a deficit of over $3.1 trillion.  The estimates for 2021 get even worse.

The chart shows estimates going forward to 2026.  These are unreliable, but still telling.  I don’t know why they would expect to have receipts of $5.3 trillion in 2026.  Maybe we will if we have massive inflation.  These predictions are based on an assumption that there will be no recession, which is a pretty big assumption.

One thing that is certain is that we will continue to see massive annual deficits.  This is the amount added to the national debt every year.  All of the assumptions show deficits of at least $1.3 trillion over the next 5 years.  This is largely being funded by the Federal Reserve buying U.S. government debt.

Unsustainable

Herbert Stein said that if something cannot go on forever, it will stop.  It sounds like it should be a Yogi Berra quote. Sometimes things have to be stated simply to bring us back to reality.

It is surprising how long the federal government has gotten away with these massive deficits.  The consumer price inflation numbers are coming in higher these days, so it’s possible that this could be the start of the end of this madness.

One thing for sure is that the Congress and president are not going to voluntarily reduce the budget.  I am not counting the ridiculous outlays from 2020 and 2021 with stimulus checks, bailouts, and unemployment checks.

This is the ratchet effect.  The outlays in fiscal year 2019 were $4.447 trillion.  This was already absurdly high.  After exploding for 2020 and 2021, the government will ratchet it back a little.  But if spending is at $6 trillion for 2022, that will be an increase of more than $1.5 trillion from the already bloated budget of 2019.

This cannot go on.  It technically can continue numerically, but there are going to be great consequences.  There already are great consequences.

When there is a massive deficit, we hear that we are burdening our grandchildren and future generations.  This isn’t untrue.  But more importantly, which isn’t typically said, is that we are burdening ourselves now.  This is all a misallocation of resources.  If the government is spending money (whether through taxes or debt or inflation), then that is money that is not available for saving, spending, and investing by companies and individuals.

It is impossible to know how this will all play out, but it is going to be painful.  If we hit a 1970s scenario where there is double-digit price inflation, what will the Fed do?  It isn’t as easy now to get someone like Paul Volcker in as Fed chair to stop the money creation and allow interest rates to rise.  It’s certainly possible, but America has become addicted to spending and debt.

Can you imagine if price inflation and interest rates hit double digits?  Can you imagine that Congress is forced to cut back its spending to just 5 years ago at about $4 trillion?  There would be a lot of people who are dependent on government taking a haircut.  There would be a lot of special interests upset.  There would be major cuts in both welfare and warfare programs across the board.  It can’t happen soon enough for me.

If you test positive for COVID-19 and die within 28 days, then you died of COVID.  If you get the COVID vaccine and then you die, it was a coincidence.  It was just your time to go.

I have been harping on this point for several months now.  Hank Aaron died a few weeks after receiving a COVID shot.  My local news reported on his death and then said he was trying to set an example for other African Americans by getting the shot.  They said it with no irony, and with no thought that his death could have possibly been linked to the shot.

Hank Aaron was old, you might say.  Ok, so are most of the people who are supposedly dying of COVID.

If you look it up on Google, all the “fact checkers” will assure you that his death was natural.

There has been a lack of consistency with COVID since almost day one of the hysteria.  The CDC changed its guidelines on reporting deaths.  This is not how deaths have ever been recorded for the flu or anything else.

The PCR test can be run at different cycle thresholds (CTs).  The higher the CT count, the more amplification there is of the material.  A high CT count can pick up meaningless viral debris.  In other words, a high CT count will give you a lot of false positives.

In 2020, Dr. Fauci admitted that anything over 35 cycles is not reliable and will give you false positives.  Yet, the FDA says labs should run their tests up to 40 cycles.  Why would the FDA set these loose guidelines that will spit out a high percentage of false positive tests?  Someone should ask Dr. Fauci this question.

This is how we got a casedemic.  And when you have millions of people testing positive, some percentage of those people are going to die, whether or not COVID had anything to do with it.  There were about 7,500 Americans dying every single day before COVID ever came about.

The Biggest Scam Yet

If that’s not convincing enough that this hysteria is one giant scam, then this next thing should do it.  Anyone who makes excuses for this just isn’t being honest, or else they lack any curiosity.  Not being curious at all while speaking out on a subject really makes someone dishonest at some level.

The CDC tracks what it calls “breakthrough” cases.  These are cases where someone is fully vaccinated for COVID-19 yet contracts it anyway.  But the CDC has changed its guidelines for what counts as a case.  This applies only to those who are vaccinated.

In order to be counted as a breakthrough case, the lab has to submit a COVID positive test run at 28 cycles or lower.  In addition, the person has to exhibit symptoms of COVID and has to be hospitalized or die.

In other words, it is a completely different standard from what has been used (and still is used) to measure cases of COVID for those who are not vaccinated.

If these same guidelines had applied since March 2020, there never would have been a casedemic.  There never would have been a pandemic (as defined by the corporate media).  There never would have been the hysteria because the numbers would not have supported the hysteria.

This is a scam.

Have you ever heard this reported on NBC Nightly News or CNN?  The question answers itself.

This is a major scam, and it is being perpetrated with the help of the establishment media.  You aren’t going to hear about any of this on the television, with the possible exception of a few shows on Fox News.

Here is a good article run by Zero Hedge on this story.  If your friends doubt the validity of it, tell them to look directly at the CDC website.  Again, it takes a little bit of curiosity.

The CDC’s website says: “As of May 1, 2021, CDC transitioned from monitoring all reported vaccine breakthrough cases to focus on identifying and investigating only hospitalized or fatal cases due to any cause.  This shift will help maximize the quality of the data collected on cases of greatest clinical and public health importance.”

Also on the CDC website, it has information for laboratories on vaccine breakthrough cases.  It states: “Clinical specimens for sequencing should have an RT-PCR Ct value ≤28.”

If the test is run at 29 cycles or higher, the CDC doesn’t want to count it, but they’ll be happy to continue counting COVID cases for unvaccinated people run at 40 cycles.

Let your Facebook friends try to defend this one.  Anyone making excuses is lying about it.  They just want to shut their eyes and believe what their overlords in the corporate media tell them to believe.

I know that things are opening back up in the United States.  You can’t say the same about Canada and other places.  But there is still a lot of hysteria out there, and the perpetrators of this should be exposed so that this never happens again.  They should be shown as the liars and deceivers that they are.

They are reporting false statistics.  The standards for counting cases are different between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated.  What are they trying to hide with this?

It’s either that the vaccines are ineffective (at best), or that there never was a pandemic.  It’s likely both, but it really has to be at least one or the other.  If not, why are they playing this game?  If the vaccines work so well and the PCR tests are accurate, then why the different standards?

Dr. Fauci and the head people at the CDC should be asked these questions.  The large majority of people are completely in the dark about this.  The liars, criminals, and murderers who are promoting these lies need to be exposed.

It’s been a rough week for Bitcoin enthusiasts.  It was really a rough week for anyone who is enthusiastic about cryptocurrencies.

It was Elon Musk who propelled Bitcoin to its highest high, and it was Musk who seemed to take some of the air out of the bubble.  Like any investment, we can’t be certain of the cause though.  Maybe Bitcoin would have tanked even if Musk hadn’t said that Tesla would stop accepting it.

The reality is that cryptocurrencies are all part of the speculative bubble.  I call it the “everything bubble”.  It’s not that everything is literally in a bubble, but all of the major asset classes seem to be in a speculative bubble.  This includes stocks, real estate, bonds, and, perhaps to a lesser degree, commodities.

On Wednesday, the price of the Dow and Bitcoin crossed paths a couple of times in the 33,000 range.  While I am down on stocks and think most stocks are in a massive bubble, I would prefer to hold the Dow over Bitcoin right now.

If you were gifted one share of the Dow or one bitcoin, and you had to hold it for at least one year, which would you choose?  I would rather take partial ownership of 30 major companies that actually sell things.

Bitcoin is nothing.  All similar cryptocurrencies are nothing.  They are novelties.  Some libertarians hate it when I talk this way.  I don’t want to argue with other people who are critical of the Fed, but I fear that they are doing a disservice to the libertarian cause.

I understand that there are some mainstream (establishment) commentators out there who are critical of Bitcoin and other cryptos.  There are politicians and central bankers who are also critical, if they say anything at all.  Some of these people are bad people.  But it doesn’t automatically make them wrong.  Even a blind squirrel occasionally gets a nut.

The Bitcoin proponents need to read Mises.  They need to understand that money doesn’t just come about because someone announces that something is money.  The quasi-libertarian tech nerds thought they had done it with Bitcoin.  It uses a great new technology (the blockchain), but that doesn’t make Bitcoin in itself useful.  You can’t just make something money out of thin air, unless you are a government that is using the threat of force to compel others to use it.  Even then, they usually have to gradually do it over time by substituting their fiat for real money, such as gold or silver.

Bitcoin is backed by nothing.  It has no use.  You will see Bitcoin represented as some kind of gold coin with a “B” on it.  This is more appealing than putting nothing on a screen or a bunch of computer code.  But you can’t see or hold a Bitcoin, and it serves no purpose for anyone other than speculation.

Bitcoin is just over a decade old.  It is bought and sold for speculative reasons.  Gold has been used for thousands of years for jewelry, industrial purposes, and as a form of money.  It is almost a joke to compare the two things.

On Wednesday, Bitcoin took a nosedive.  This is speaking in terms of the U.S. dollar, which actually is money.  The Bitcoin proponents get really excited when Bitcoin goes up in price (i.e., in U.S. dollars), which is their measuring stick.  I don’t blame them, because I would want more U.S. dollars too.  That is money.  They are excited that they could convert their Bitcoin into dollars to actually buy things.

We were sold a bill of goods on Bitcoin.  We were told it could be used as money.  Even to this day, I will hear people argue this point.  They will say that some companies accept Bitcoin as a form of payment.

But nothing is actually priced in Bitcoin.  They are priced in dollars and converted into Bitcoin.  Tesla was never selling a car for, say, one bitcoin.  Anyone selling a product and accepting Bitcoin is not pricing the product in Bitcoin.

On Wednesday, after the price of Bitcoin tanked to around 30,000 (from over 40,000 the day before), it recovered later in the day and went back to around 40,000.  This is actually a dream come true for a speculative trader.  If you had bought at the bottom mid-morning, you could have pocketed a 30% return in the matter of a few hours.

How could anything that fluctuates 30% or more in one single day ever be possibly used as money?  Bitcoin makes the dollar look incredibly stable.  If the U.S. dollar index (which compares it to other fiat currencies) goes up or down more than 1% in one day, that is considered a major change.

Bitcoin has never been money.  It never will be money.  We were sold a story by the Bitcoin proponents about privacy and about its potential as a form of money.

There are thousands of cryptocurrencies now.  This just shows that almost anyone with some computer skills can create one.  Then it is just about marketing.  It is about marketing to get people to buy, thinking there will be another sucker down the line to buy at a higher price.

I don’t call it a Ponzi scheme because anyone can know the truth about cryptocurrencies who cares to look.  Everyone should know it is mass speculation, and nobody is forced into it, so it isn’t a Ponzi scheme.

Most, if not all, of these cryptocurrencies will end up at zero.  I have no idea if we will see another major surge from here, or if this was the beginning of the end for them.

If you enjoy speculative trading (i.e., gambling), then this market is for you right now.  While I expect a ride down, it won’t be a straight ride down.  There will be a ton of volatility.  But speculators should only gamble with money they can afford to lose.  And when I say money, I mean dollars.

The latest of the mixed messaging coming out of the CDC says that you can stop wearing a mask most of the time if you are vaccinated.  In other words, the message is clear: get vaccinated.  That’s what the paternalistic Joe Biden ordered everyone to do.

I went to the grocery store this morning, and I saw the least mask wearing (in that store) that I have seen in about a year.  It was about a 50/50 split.  Even some of the employees weren’t wearing one, but I was disappointed to hear that it was because they had been vaccinated.  I don’t believe the store is allowing people who are unvaccinated to not wear a mask, and the grocery store knows because it was administering the shots.

While it is refreshing to see more faces, it is quite concerning in other ways.

First, about half of the people are still wearing a mask.  I have never once walked in to this grocery store with a mask, and I have never been questioned.  And now it is quite obvious you can walk in without a mask.  It’s not as if anyone is going to ask for your vaccination papers.  I’m sure some idiotic store out there may try such a thing, but this is not the norm, or at least not yet.

So half the people are wearing a mask even though they don’t have to.  And with so many others not wearing them, they shouldn’t be afraid of any dirty looks (even though you can’t even see dirty looks through a mask).  They are wearing them because they have been trained to wear them.  You have to wonder what percent of the population will wear a mask forever when out in public.

But just as depressing are the people not wearing a mask.  The CDC changes its guidelines and then nearly half the population just suddenly changes their behavior.  In other words, last week it was unsafe to walk around without a mask.  This week, because of new CDC guidance, it is now safe to walk around.

Again, I have never worn a mask in this store (and most other stores), and I have never been questioned.  So it’s not like these people couldn’t go without one before.

But I have found since March 2020 that there is a great lack of courage in this world.  I already knew this, but I didn’t know to what degree.  Most people conform to the crowd.  Half the people probably think this is completely stupid and nothing more than political theater.  Yet, they comply because they don’t want to risk standing out.

This is one great thing about having been a libertarian.  I was already accustomed to people thinking I’m crazy, or people trying to embarrass me for my beliefs (which is a belief in peace and prosperity).  So it did not take much courage for me to walk into a store without a diaper on my face.  Apparently that isn’t the case for most people.

Get Vaccinated, Or Be Shunned

Joe Biden has condescendingly told us to get vaccinated.  I realized quickly that this was the whole point about the change in CDC guidance.  It is a bribe.  If you want your life back, then you better get vaccinated.

And you can trust that this does work on a certain percentage of people.  There are many people that don’t really care one way or the other about getting the shot.  They may not have concerns about vaccine side effects, and they also don’t really have concerns over COVID.  But they think, “Well, it looks like this is the way going forward.  I don’t want to be prohibited from participating in society, so I better just get my shot.”

It is rather scary how much the powers-that-be are desperately trying to get you to take the vaccine (if the messenger RNA shot should even be considered a vaccine).

If someone who isn’t a scientist or doctor recommends not getting it, then we get to hear from the “experts” on how you shouldn’t take advice from someone who isn’t a healthcare expert.  Of course, they just ignore the doctors and scientists who actually warn against it.

But the same establishment will have Bill Gates on to tell us to get the shot.  I suppose Gates is an expert when it comes to viruses, as many of my past computers with a Windows operating system contracted many viruses.

Bill Gates wants to depopulate the earth, and he is begging desperately for everyone to get a COVID vaccine.  It tends to raise a few questions.

Meanwhile, we have Trump, who has become more idiotic since leaving office, claiming that he is the father of the vaccine.  He says that there wouldn’t have been a vaccine for 5 years if it hadn’t been for him.  He is telling people to get it.  Trump is mad that other people are taking credit for his work.

I believe this may cost Trump the 2024 Republican nomination, if that is what he wants.  At least half of his supporters don’t want the COVID jab.  They don’t trust the medical establishment, which was essential for getting Trump out of office.  If we hadn’t had COVID hysteria in 2020, Trump would have had a better chance at winning the presidency (regardless of whether you think there was significant fraud).

Almost everyone with an audience is telling you to get vaccinated.  The government used taxpayer money to fund the pharmaceutical companies to develop their concoction.  These companies are not held liable for death or side effects that may occur from their vaccines.  Now the government is running commercials with your tax money to tell you to get vaccinated.  To top it off, they are trying to tell you to get vaccinated if you want your life back.  If the encouragement doesn’t work, then maybe the threats and bribery will.

And if you go to state and local politics, you might be offered a free beer to get your shot, or you might win a million dollar lottery or a college scholarship.  Nothing says healthcare like giving someone a lottery ticket to make an important medical decision.

I believe the death toll and the side effects are vastly understated from the COVID vaccines.  But even the ones that are reported are significant.  It is not a decision that should be made lightly.  It is also not a decision that should be taken lightly for parents of children, many of whom are now eligible for the jab.

We also have no idea what the long-term side effects of the vaccines will be.  There is great (and valid) concern that it will make it harder for women to get pregnant.  What if all of the girls in their teens and twenties who are getting vaccinated find out later in life that it is difficult to get pregnant?  What if just 25% of those vaccinated find they cannot have a healthy pregnancy?  I guess Bill Gates may get his wish.

Nobody knows what the long-term side effects will be.  Maybe they won’t be significant for most people.  But the point is that we don’t know.  We know that some people have already died, and some people have already suffered severe health problems, but we don’t know about the longer picture in the future.  Even if you buy into the government’s own statistics, your chance of dying of COVID is virtually nothing if you are a child or young adult.  We don’t know the chances of dying or experiencing long-term health problems if you get vaccinated for COVID.

Anthony Fauci recently admitted that just a slim majority of workers at the NIH have likely gotten vaccinated.  If 40 to 50 percent of NIH employees haven’t gotten jabbed, what does that tell us?  I’m not sure if these people are smart or evil, or both.  But if they work for this propaganda arm and refuse to get the shot themselves, that says a lot about the situation.  They either know that COVID isn’t dangerous to most people, or they know that the vaccines carry significant risks, or both.

Joe Biden can tell you to get vaccinated.  But if you experience any medical issues because of it, I can guarantee you that Biden and Fauci won’t be by your side looking after you.  If anything, you will just be silenced or smeared for telling your story.

The latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) numbers came in on May 12, 2021.  There were expectations that price inflation would pick up.  They were calling it “transitory”.  But the numbers came in much hotter than expected.

For the month of April, prices rose 0.8% from the previous month.  The year-over-year showed an increase of 4.2%, although that could be a bit misleading, as the country was mostly under lockdown in April 2020.

The CPI excluding food and energy came in even slightly higher, as it was up 0.9% from the previous month.

The more stable median CPI came in at just 0.2% from the previous month.  While I like looking at this figure as well, it is important to take it in context.  This means that half the consumer goods measured were at or below the 0.2% increase.  That’s the median.  But the overall CPI came in at 0.8%, which means some consumer goods are coming in much, much higher to push the weighted average higher.

If the consumer goods that are seeing significant price inflation are the goods that are more essential to the average person, then this makes a big difference.  For example, we know that the price of lumber has gone up in a big way.  This is adding tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of building a new house.  Meanwhile, if the price of new furniture stays the same, it isn’t the same thing.  Most people don’t need new furniture.

Either way, the average is probably more indicative of what people are actually experiencing.  I like looking at the median because it is less volatile, but the average is more meaningful over time.

This CPI numbers spooked a lot of people.  It likely spooked the members of the Federal Reserve the most.  The Fed has essentially gotten away with massive monetary inflation over the last 13 years with little consequence.  There has not been a corresponding increase in price inflation, especially when looking at the CPI statistics or the PCE measure that the Fed uses.

This inflation report comes right on the heels of a bad jobs report last week, where the unemployment rate went up.  We aren’t in the mode of 1970s stagflation yet, but if these numbers continue, we are headed that way.

While I don’t necessarily expect the monthly CPI numbers to keep coming in so high in the coming months, it isn’t impossible either.  An increase of 0.8% may not seem that high, but that is for one month.  If you annualize that, you get a rate of 9.6%.  If you annualize the CPI minus food and energy, it gets into the double digits.

What will the Fed do if we get a couple of more months similar to the one just reported?  Fed officials have insisted that we would see its target rate remain near zero for the foreseeable future.  The Fed has also continued to expand its balance sheet by about $120 billion per month.  This is after the massive jump of almost $3 trillion in March through May of 2020.

Will the Fed be forced to save the dollar and gain control of price inflation by stopping its balance sheet expansion?  Will it have to take even more drastic measures and reduce it?

If and when the Fed does react to increased inflation fears, what will happen to the markets?  What will happen to the federal government’s spending?  Who will buy all of the debt that is continually growing?  I don’t think China and Japan will be major buyers, or at least not at low interest rates.  And if rates are pushed much higher, then the interest payments on the national debt will start to grow, thus perpetuating the situation.

Market Reaction

There was a major sell-off on Wall Street.  The Dow dropped 681 points.  The S&P 500 and Nasdaq were both down over 2%.

Almost everything was down, including cryptocurrencies and gold.

You may wonder why gold went down in price a bit, given that it is supposed to be an inflation hedge.  The reason is because the market fears that the Fed will have to stop its ultra loose monetary policy earlier than expected.  This is really the reason that most everything went down.

This just shows that the major boom in the stock market that we have seen is a result of Federal Reserve monetary inflation.  When the government hands out tons of “free” money, which is delivered through money creation instead of taxation, then it isn’t surprising when asset prices get bid up.

Many people have enjoyed the ride, with all of these speculative assets going through the roof.  But it is obviously unsustainable.  When you think that most of the country was shut down last year, and tens of thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of small businesses closed permanently, and millions were thrown out of work, does it really make sense that the stock market has returned something like 40% over that time?

It is also interesting that Bitcoin and some other cryptos got hammered with this news.  Bitcoin was sold to people as the anti-dollar.  Its appeal is supposedly that it can’t be inflated like the U.S. dollar.  So when it is reported that the dollar is being depreciated even faster than before, why did Bitcoin sell off so much?

I think it is because Bitcoin is not an inflation hedge against the dollar or anything else.  It is a speculative “investment” that has been bid up with all of the free money going around.  With fears that the Fed might have to curtail its monetary inflation, Bitcoin suffered like most everything else, except even more dramatically.  Bitcoin and all of the other cyrptos are held up by loose money from the Fed, which seems kind of ironic given what we have been told.

I am not predicting that this is the start of a new bear market.  It’s quite possible that things will settle down, and it is possible that the bull market could resume.

But despite the bad news for the market, it is a little refreshing for those of us who have been warning that this is one giant speculative bubble that is unsustainable.

The “everything bubble” is dependent on Fed easy money.  As soon as there is a threat that the easy money will be pulled away, it can collapse the whole house of cards.

Now we get to wait another month for the next round of CPI numbers.  We’ll see if the bubble can keep going in the meantime, or if investors just got hit with a dose of reality.

“The masses will never again accept the mindless serfdom of the Old Order; and given these demands that have been awakened by liberalism and the Industrial Revolution, long-run victory for liberty is inevitable.”  ~Murray Rothbard

It isn’t easy being a libertarian.  Sometimes I can’t help but wonder whether ignorance really is bliss.  In certain aspects, life can be happier by not knowing certain things.

I don’t take that view of 2020 and 2021 where COVID-19 hysteria has dominated.  While it is frustrating being a libertarian (when isn’t it?) and watching the world around you destroy itself, I believe most people are personally better off knowing the truth.

At least I haven’t been living in fear of a virus for the last 15 months.  I can’t say the same for some others.  My fear has been the hysteria and the resultant damage.  But at least I have been able to live my life to the degree that society around me has allowed.  I recognize that I can’t control the actions of governments and corporations that perpetuate the hysteria, but I can still live freely to the degree that it is possible.

Many libertarians are surprised when I say that I am optimistic with regard to the prospects for liberty, at least in the long run.  Some think I am completely crazy for believing this.

To be sure, I have no way of knowing for sure.  It is possible that liberty will be curtailed in the long run.  It is possible that we could have a nuclear war that ends life on earth.  So my optimism isn’t a guarantee, but I do believe that greater liberty is the more likely outcome over the long run.  In 20 years, and more certainly in 40 years, I believe we will be better off than today.

I would be lying if I didn’t say that I had more doubts in 2020.  It surprised me how easily the people were duped.  It isn’t just a matter of buying into virus hysteria, although that is bad enough.  If the establishment and its corporate media will lie to get us into a war, don’t you think they might be capable of lying about the severity of a virus?

But the worst part of 2020 is that people easily gave up their liberty.  They thought it sounded reasonable when we were told we needed to give up life for two weeks to “flatten the curve”.  Flattening the curve then morphed into living life so as to avoid death at all costs.  Even if you thought the virus really was highly contagious and very deadly, it should never be an excuse to grant the state more power.  And this was a degree of power that was staggering.

Governors and mayors now have the power to shut down society on a whim.  People were told to stay at home.  Businesses that were deemed “non-essential” were forced to close down for a certain period of time.  Some businesses (if they haven’t permanently shut down) still face harsh restrictions.

The year 2020 wasn’t a good year for liberty in the United States or across the globe.  At the same time, it may have sown the seeds for greater liberty in the future.

Open Communication

We live in a time where communication is wide open.  Technology has enabled people to communicate on a scale that, at one time, was thought to be impossible.

Again, 2020 seemed to be a step in the wrong direction in terms of communication and free speech.  We live in a politically correct world where the power elite tries to silence people.  The term “cancel culture” is widely understood today.

There has been a conspiracy by big tech and other corporations to silence those who speak out too strongly against the accepted establishment narrative.  Maybe some of this is to avoid bad public relations.  Maybe some of it is due to feeling threatened by government action.  Maybe some of it is just the existence of corporate executives wanting to appear to be in touch with the times.

They are mostly overplaying their hands.  I don’t think most Americans seriously buy into the “woke” culture.  I think most people, including many who preach it, know it is a farce.

I know that Google, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, among others, have made a concerted effort to silence people because they don’t like the message.  In the long run, I don’t think it will work, and I think it will ultimately hurt these big companies.

There are new platforms coming online all the time.  These companies are still the top dogs when it comes to their services, but they are going to start losing ground.  There are video platforms now that will take your video that was banned by YouTube for going against the establishment narrative.

I like to point out to people that these companies didn’t exist 30 years ago.  Most of them didn’t exist 20 years ago.  If you go back to 1990, how did you get your news?  You either read the establishment newspaper, or you watched the establishment news.  You may have had a choice of 3 or 4 networks to watch your evening news, and they mostly repeated the same things (as they still do today).  Conservative talk radio was only getting started.

We have so many more options now.  It is ridiculous.  I know Facebook will prevent some of your posts from being seen.  I know Google will not rank your site high in the search engine because you aren’t saying the right things according to them.  But the lines of communication are more open today than ever.

In order to sell liberty, you have to sell the truth.  In order to sell statism, you have to sell lies and propaganda.  This is why politicians rely on propaganda to promote their wars, and also to promote their domestic policies.

Free speech is still mostly free in America.  It is used widely.  If you want to find an alternative view on most anything, it is out there if you look.  You have to be a little bit curious.  It is easy to get the official establishment narrative on things. If you want to find counter views, you have to be willing to look with an open mind.  You will find something.

Shifting Opinions

Sometimes things are hard to see.  Election results don’t always show shifts in public opinion for some time, especially when the people running are the same old thing.

One obvious sign of optimism was the election of Donald Trump in 2016.  And regardless of how you view the election of 2020, Trump received far more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016.

Trump is not a libertarian.  He isn’t really close to libertarianism on anything.  But he did have a somewhat anti establishment message.  He was probably the first person to win the presidency since at least the 1920s to not be approved by the establishment.  The establishment didn’t care for Reagan, but they felt he could be controlled enough within certain boundaries.  Trump was just a different being, especially with his mouth.

Despite the group effort by the media and all of the establishment organizations, they could not stop Trump from being elected president in 2016.  Americans were told that they shouldn’t dare vote for such a man, yet many of them did it anyway.

Here is another aspect of Trump that is positive.  He has dramatically shifted the Republican Party.  Maybe it’s not all good, but in terms of foreign policy, it is a vast improvement.  Liz Cheney is being shunned by Republicans.  George W. Bush is no longer viewed favorably by many (likely a majority) of Republicans.  The Republican Party is not exactly the party of peace, but the majority of members are far less hawkish on war than they were a decade ago.  This is a highly positive development.

In terms of hardcore libertarians, we are much better off than 20 years ago.  The Ron Paul Revolution brought in hundreds of thousands of radical libertarians who previously didn’t exist.

And while I wish this had happened in 2008, the radical libertarians are starting to take over the Libertarian Party.  We are likely to have a party that can spread the message of liberty on a national stage.

Even outside of the political arena, there are positive developments.  You have to look at the long-term trends.  Attempts by the left over the last few decades to increase gun control have not gotten far up to this point.

Homeschooling continues to rise in popularity.  This was already happening before 2020.  I can tell you from personal experience that the statistics vastly understate the number of children being homeschooled.

While the drug war is still a major problem, most states have adopted some form of legalization for marijuana.  This is in spite of federal laws.  Not only is this a victory for reducing victimless crimes, but it is also a form of state nullification.

The national debt, the unfunded liabilities, the money creation by the Fed, and the massive government spending are all a mess.  It is also unsustainable.

So, yes, there are going to be some tough times ahead, especially for those who are living an unsustainable lifestyle.  Ultimately, I think there are going to be massive defaults in some form.  There are already subtle defaults through currency depreciation.

I don’t think we will end up resembling anything like Venezuela.  People are accustomed to high living standards in America.  They are not going to easily give that up.  Americans still have a sense of rugged individualism.  They are entrepreneurial.  Most Americans still celebrate wealth when it is justly acquired.  Americans like a good rags-to-riches story.

And while 2020 was disappointing, I think many people have become more politically astute.  Politics couldn’t be avoided in 2020 because it came home, and it came home hard.  When you are told that you can’t go shopping and you have to stay at home, it doesn’t get any more political than that.

The establishment has likely overplayed their collective hands.  Joe Biden says that if you get vaccinated, obey your orders, and “we” see an improvement, then maybe you can have a small family get-together in your backyard on July 4^th.  I assume that at least 95% of people are already having small family get-togethers.

These establishment people are making themselves irrelevant.  The further they go in wanting to hype the virus and push for restrictions, the more they delegitimize themselves.  This has an impact over time.  People have less trust of authority and “experts”.  This is a major positive for liberty in the long run.

We can only hope that Biden and Fauci keep pushing masks and distancing and isolation.  It only makes the resistance stronger.

It won’t be a straight line up in terms of liberty and living standards.  There will be setbacks.  2020 was a setback, but it also likely shifted some people’s opinions about how much they should trust the state and its “experts”.

As Rothbard said, we aren’t going back to the Old Order.  There are too many Americans who have a high standard of living, and there are too many Americans who generally favor liberty.  I am still optimistic about the long-term prospects for liberty.

There seem to be stories about shortages everywhere.  Up until 2020, most Americans would think of supply shortages as being mostly a third-world problem.

Sure, we might have a few things every now and then where there are shortages because of a bad crop in a certain region or a supply problem in a foreign country.  But in the U.S., we are accustomed to having almost everything readily available, and most things don’t fluctuate much in price.

2020 and 2021 have been different.  In late March and April of 2020, there were definite shortages.  In the U.S., toilet paper was the one good in highest demand.  There were also shortages of meat, and even vegetables, in grocery stores.

This could easily be blamed on COVID or COVID hysteria.  Not only were there supply chain disruptions, but also the demand increased, as many people who frequently dined out in the past were getting most of their meals from the grocery store.  Due to government regulations, it wasn’t easy for food suppliers to deliver more food to grocery stores instead of to restaurants.

In 2021, more shortages are appearing.  While it is often blamed on COVID, it seems hard to blame a virus on this situation.  At the very least, let’s appropriately blame virus hysteria and state interference.

It is important to note that in the U.S., the federal government and state governments are still paying many people to not work with expanded unemployment checks and more leniency in looking (or not looking) for work.  If you have fewer people producing, then fewer things will get produced.  How’s that for an economics lesson?

I have heard of shortages in many things, ranging from computer chips, to chlorine, to raw materials, to flowers.

In the case of raw materials, like steel and lumber, prices have gone up to reflect the reduced supply or increased demand (or some combination of both).  Lumber has received a lot of attention, as the price has risen 2 to 3 times what it was just over a year ago.  For homebuilders, this has led to increased costs of tens of thousands of dollars per house.

I saw a story on my local news about a flower shop that was not taking orders for another 4 days (up until Mother’s Day) because they were out of flowers.  This tells me that they should have been charging higher prices.  If there is less supply or higher demand (or both), then you are going to run out of supplies if you keep charging the old price.  There would be a shortage of lumber if prices were held to what they were last year.  Perhaps it is understandable for a local florist to not want to raise prices too quickly, especially not knowing if the supposed shortage would last.

Central Bank Inflation

The curious thing about all of this is that in all of this talk of shortages, there is little discussion of monetary inflation.  They can blame COVID, supply chain disruptions, and everything else under the sun, but nothing comes out of the establishment media (which includes most local news) about the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet.

Maybe it isn’t that curious because they don’t want to blame the central bank for the current problems, and they certainly don’t want to blame the mass hysteria created by government with shutdowns and restrictions on businesses.

Shortages and inflation go hand in hand.  When a massive amount of new money enters the system without a corresponding increase in production, then prices are going to be bid up over time.  This is what happens when you have more money chasing approximately the same amount of goods and services.

This is what happens when the federal government spends trillions of dollars to bail out companies and individuals who were forced to shut down and stay at home.  It was governors and mayors across the country who adopted these anti-liberty policies, and they should have been the ones to deal with them and face the backlash.

Instead, the federal government largely bailed them out by handing out “free” money to the unemployed and to people just for existing.  Virtually all of this spending was funded by debt monetization.  In other words, the Fed created money out of thin air so that the federal government could go on an even bigger spending spree.

When you hand out thousands of dollars to people to stay unemployed, and then you hand out thousands of dollars to most people just for existing, is it any surprise that prices are going up at an accelerating pace?  Is it really supply problems that have caused the price of lumber to skyrocket?  It is the demand side, and the reason there is so much demand is because people have been flooded with “free” money.

When trillions of dollars enter the economy without a corresponding increase in production, then people are going to bid up prices.  This means prices on almost anything, which includes stocks, houses, cryptocurrencies, NFTs, food, lumber, and flowers.

Warren Buffett, at his annual shareholder meeting, said, “We are seeing very substantial inflation.”  Unfortunately, he failed to learn the lessons from his father, Howard Buffett.  If only Warren had listened to his father as a child instead of becoming something of a tool for the state.  He is going to talk about inflation without addressing the elephant in the room?  Is he really that dumb on this subject, or does he just think everyone listening to him is dumb?  When prices are rising, you might want to take a look at the one entity that controls the entire base money supply for the country.

As long as prices are allowed to adjust, there should be no long-term shortages.  There can be some short-term disruptions where the decreased supply or increased demand is unexpected, and sometimes it takes time for sellers to figure out that they need to raise their prices.

Most of us would prefer rising prices to shortages.  At least with rising prices, you have more options.  You can choose not to buy something, or to buy less of it.  If there are shortages, you may not have a choice at all.

As long as the Fed continues with its insane policy of mass monetary inflation, then these rising prices (regardless of how much they are reflected in the CPI statistics) will continue over time.

We are likely in a massive bubble right now.  I call it the “everything bubble”.  If and when it pops, asset prices are likely to go way down.  It is less clear what will happen with basic consumer goods.  We have to remember the 1970s when there was high price inflation with a stagnant economy.

The early 1980s, with Paul Volcker as chair of the Fed, were probably the last time we saw a true correction in the U.S. where there was a true cleansing.  The bad investments were permitted to fail, and resources were allocated more in alignment with consumer demand.

Unfortunately, since that time, every recession is met with massive Fed interference in the form of inflation and artificially low interest rates.  For this reason, higher price inflation looks to be the continued policy going forward.  It’s better than shortages, but a lot worse than the 1980s.

In my last post, I wrote about Dave Smith announcing a possible run for the presidency in 2024 on the Libertarian Party ticket.  He first mentioned this on Joe Rogan’s podcast.  And while this was the big news for me coming from his latest appearance on Rogan’s podcast, that wasn’t the big news nationally.

Instead, it was another discussion that is apparently forbidden in establishment circles.  Dave Smith and Joe Rogan dared to question the wisdom of getting the COVID-19 vaccine, especially for younger people.  The establishment media is ignoring Dave Smith because he is a nobody to them.  Maybe they’ll get to know him better in 2024.

Joe Rogan, on the other hand, is a podcaster with millions of followers.  The establishment knows this, so they had to attack him for his comments.  The video clip apparently went viral, which then led to it getting some attention from the national establishment media.

When appearing on CNN, Joe Biden’s communications director, Kate Bedingfield, said, “I guess my first question would be, ‘Did Joe Rogan become a medical doctor while we weren’t looking?’”

That goes right along with the narrative of the last year.  You have to trust the experts.  If you aren’t a scientist or a doctor, then you shouldn’t be questioning the official narrative.  But more importantly, you have to listen to the doctors and the scientists that the establishment (made of mostly non doctors and non scientists) tells you to listen to.  Only the scientists and doctors who parrot the official narrative will get airtime on the establishment media.

This reminds me of questioning a U.S. Supreme Court decision.  If someone disagrees with you, it is inevitable to hear something to the effect of, “You aren’t a lawyer or legal scholar.”

Then you look at the ruling and realize it was a 6-3 ruling.  So there were 3 justices who opposed the majority ruling. They were all lawyers who managed to get appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, yet they disagree with their colleagues.  So how can we ever know who is right or wrong because they are all supposed to be “experts”?

Of course, it is ridiculous to say that you need to be an expert to analyze something.  I didn’t have to be an expert in statistics to realize that the line about a 3 to 4 percent mortality rate of COVID patients coming out of Wuhan, China was bogus.  They were testing people who were really sick.

If all you do is follow the line of the “experts”, then the experts and their controllers can have their way with you on anything.  If they tell you to stand on one leg and cluck like a chicken to keep the virus away, are you going to do it because that is what the science says?

Societal Responsibility

On the podcast, Joe Rogan said if you’re 21 years old, why get vaccinated.  He said, “If you’re a healthy person, and you’re exercising all the time, and you’re young, and you’re eating well, like, I don’t think you need to worry about this.”

Dave Smith was probably even stronger, but he doesn’t get as much backlash, at least from the big players, because they don’t want to give him too much attention.  Rogan is the big fish to fry right now.

Dave said that he wouldn’t sacrifice his daughter for the good of society.  He correctly pointed out that the chance of serious illness or death from COVID for a very young person is essentially zero.  This is true even if you buy into the CDC’s death statistics.  Meanwhile, we don’t really know the risks involved with getting vaccinated.

The establishment’s favorite expert, Dr. Fauci, who doesn’t actually treat patients, discussed these comments on some interviews.  Among other things, he said, “So you have to put a little bit of societal responsibility in your choices, and that’s why I disagree with Mr. Rogan under that circumstance.”

In other words, Fauci is saying the exact opposite of Dave Smith.  Fauci is saying that people should get their children vaccinated for the good of society.  The “good of society” or “societal responsibility” sounds like a term used by communists.

In other words, there may be someone who is old or really vulnerable to a virus.  It is possible (according to the establishment “experts”), that your child could get the virus and pass it on to someone vulnerable.  So even though this has no benefit to your child, and it actually increases their risk of injury due to the unknowns of the vaccines, you should sacrifice your child for others.

Is this really what our society has come to?

For the good of society, I would like to see Dr. Fauci go away.  Unfortunately, Trump was too weak to get rid of him, and Biden and hid handlers depend on Fauci to promote their narrative, which now apparently includes societal responsibility.

I don’t put much faith in the FDA, but even the FDA has not approved these COVID vaccines.  They are only authorized for emergency use.  We do not have an accurate picture of the deaths and side effects from these vaccines, especially in the long term.  The messenger RNA technology is new to humans when it comes to vaccination.  Given all of this and more, it is quite reasonable to believe that the risk of a vaccine is greater than the risk of COVID for a young person.

Does Fauci really want to put children at an increased risk of harm for the good of society?  Is this how sick of a man he is?

For all of the parents out there who have to decide on behalf of their children whether to allow them to be vaccinated, I hope you are taking note.  If your child is harmed, it is ultimately your responsibility.  While you may be fed propaganda from the medical establishment and the establishment in general, it is your responsibility to do your own research and analysis.

Guess what?  If your child becomes permanently disabled in some way due to vaccine impacts, you will be responsible.  You will have to take care of your child for the rest of your life.  Dr. Fauci isn’t going to take responsibility and look after your child.  The FDA isn’t going to look after your child.  The pharmaceutical companies aren’t going to look after your child.

I have a responsibility to my own family.  They are my number one priority.  But I am still trying to benefit society by calling attention to the criminals who are purposely selling these lies.  They are evil people.  Fauci and Bill Gates are evil people, promoting their vaccines for their own evil purposes.

If you want to get the shot (or shots) as an adult, go ahead.  While that’s not my choice, I do believe in free choice.  It is your body.  When it comes to your child, it is your responsibility to look out for the interests of your child.  Fauci and Gates are not looking out for the interests of your child.  They are hiding behind the tyrannical term of “societal responsibility”.

This could be a game changer for radical libertarians.  Comedian and podcaster Dave Smith appeared on Joe Rogan’s show where he hinted at possibly running for president in 2024.

On his own show, Dave came out and said that he was considering a run for the presidency on the Libertarian Party (LP) ticket for 2024.  He said he would only do it if he saw the support.  I took this to mean that he wants his loyal listeners to join the LP, to elect Angela McArdle as the next chairperson of the LP national committee, and then to get out to the national convention in 2024 to support a Dave Smith candidacy.

The LP does not run like the Democrats and Republicans.  The presidential and vice presidential nominees are chosen (separately) at the convention.  If you have just a few hundred loyal followers who are willing to be active, then you can secure the nomination.

Although Jo Jorgensen’s candidacy was somewhat disappointing in 2020, I still think she was a step in the right direction.  She was something of a compromise candidate between the radicals and the pragmatics.  Even if her campaign wasn’t great, it did seem to be a step away from the Johnson/ Weld ticket of 2016.

I believe that the main purpose of having a presidential candidate for the LP is one of education.  It is a platform for the person to use to spread the message of liberty.  This means you need someone who is actually willing to sell a principled libertarian message, and you need someone who is good at selling the message.  Dave wants to return to the days of Harry Browne and Ron Paul.

While I am excited at this prospect, I hope Dave knows what he is getting in to.  He has a wife and kid, with another kid on the way.  If he ever gains any traction, the claws are going to come out.  It will be brutal enough just going through the LP nomination process.  If he gains traction nationally with his message, I can’t imagine what the establishment will do.

Maybe they’ll try to ignore him, but what happens if he starts showing up with significant percentages in the polls?  We all know what they did to Donald Trump just because he dared to question the empire at times.  I can’t imagine what they would do to someone who has a consistent message of being anti war and pro liberty.

I am not naïve as to the prospects of a third-party candidate getting elected, let alone a radical libertarian.  At the same time, I think a Dave Smith candidacy on the national ticket could have a deep and lasting impact on this world.

A Real Libertarian with a Real Message

One of the things Dave addressed on his podcast is that his enemies would be digging up all of the things he has said over the years.  Dave is a comedian.  He is a podcaster.  He is politically incorrect.  He has a foul mouth and tells off-color jokes.

He already knows his strategy.  As soon as someone points out something “bad” he said in the past, Dave will say that the U.S. government has been dropping bombs on Syria and starving children in Yemen (or something to that effect).  He will immediately turn it around.  “Ok, so I said something that was offensive.  You know what’s really offensive?  Killing innocent children in foreign countries.  Why aren’t you as mad at the people doing that?  That’s odd.”

He can turn it around every single time that he is able to respond.  Of course, if the establishment media is forced to deal with him, they will relentlessly attack him, much like they did with Trump.  But if anyone sneaks outside of the establishment media to hear what Dave is actually saying, they will hear the brutal truth.

Dave is a great salesman for liberty.  He is strong and principled without coming across as overbearing.  It helps that he can add humor when appropriate.  He has a somewhat populist message at times while still sticking to radical libertarian ideas.

He has been on Joe Rogan’s show something like six times now.  I believe four of them were with just Dave alone.  Joe Rogan has an audience in the millions.  The average Rogan podcast draws more viewers and listeners than MSNBC or CNN would draw on an ordinary primetime show.

Rogan obviously likes Dave.  I think he is somewhat sympathetic to his ideas.  This may be hard to believe because Rogan endorsed Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries.  But that’s because Bernie was on Rogan’s show.  I believe Tulsi Gabbard was the only other candidate to appear.  I don’t think Bernie is genuine, but I can see where he might come across as genuine, even if you don’t agree with him on some things.  Rogan wasn’t endorsing Bernie because he wants socialism.  He was endorsing Bernie because he was a thumb in the eye of the establishment.

I think Rogan would likely endorse Dave Smith.  That would be millions of people influenced right there.  They would listen to Dave and hear his message.  He would likely convert a certain percentage of these people to libertarians.  Another decent percentage would probably disagree with him on some things but still vote for him anyway because of genuineness.

Let’s also consider that there hasn’t really been a radical libertarian on the presidential ballot in a long time.  The Constitution Party has had some decent candidates in some prior elections, but that is about it.  The LP hasn’t had anyone decent for a long time.  They haven’t had anyone decent since 2007, which is a key period of time.  That is when Ron Paul started his first Republican presidential campaign and managed to convert hundreds of thousands of people towards libertarianism.

We don’t know how a radical libertarian will do on the ballot in a general election.  There are many people who supported Ron Paul who have had nowhere to go.  Some went to Donald Trump just because he rattled the establishment.  Some went to the LP, but I don’t think a lot did.  Some just went back into hiding.

By the time 2024 comes around, a dozen years will have passed since Ron Paul’s last presidential campaign in 2012.  There were people who were 10 years old who will then be 22 years old.  They may not have been exposed to this message yet.

If Ron DeSantis is the Republican nominee in 2024, I think that could take a little steam away from Dave Smith.  DeSantis, while originally imposing a lockdown, opened up Florida in September 2020 when most of the rest of the country was still in partial shutdown mode.  DeSantis deserves some credit for this, at least compared to most other politicians.  I think DeSantis could be a disaster as president, especially when it comes to foreign policy, but I really don’t know.

If the Republican nominee is a bit more conventional, or even if it is Donald Trump, I think Dave Smith could get the ear of a lot of disaffected voters (or non voters).  We need someone who is willing to stand up and tell the truth, and to tell it in a way that sells.

I don’t think Dave’s past will hurt him much.  It may actually help him because people will see him as a real person. They won’t care if he used the F-word a million times or if he told jokes that offended the woke crowd.

Again, I don’t expect Dave Smith to win the presidency in 2024.  If he got anywhere close, I’m afraid what the establishment would do to him.  But let’s imagine that he gets 10 million votes and causes a major stir.  Let’s say that half of those people listen to the radical libertarian message, and it sticks with them.  We could change the world.

The amount of government (i.e., the state) that we get is almost directly proportional to what public opinion will allow.  The reason that the U.S. is more open than Canada right now isn’t because Biden is better than Trudeau.  It’s because Americans stopped tolerating the lockdowns.

As Etienne de la Boetie pointed out many hundreds of years ago, the state relies on the consent of the governed.  Without that consent, it crumbles.  If 5 million people turn into radical libertarians, while another 20 million turn into people with libertarian sympathies, it could radically transform the country and the world.

It is not really the elections that count.  They are more of an effect than a cause.  The key is to spread the message of liberty.  The more hearts and minds that are changed towards living in a free society, the more free of a society we will get.  This can only be done by spreading the message of liberty by convincing others.  Dave Smith may get a great opportunity to spread the message of liberty in 2024 to a wide audience.